520 



COLLECTIONS FROM THE WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN. 



DECAPODA. 

 BEACHYUEA. 



1. Achseus lgevioculis. (Plate XLVI. fig. A.) 



I thus doubtfully designate a male specimen from the Seychelles, 

 4-12 fms., which in many of its characters closely resembles A.lorina 

 (Ad. & White*), from Mindanao and Borneo, but is distinguished by 

 the absence of the prominent spines or tubercles on the gastric and 

 cardiac regions of the carapace (which are here replaced by very 

 small tubercles), the nearly terete eye-peduncles (which in A. lorina 

 are armed with a spine or tubercle), and the much shorter ambula- 

 tory legs, which are scarcely more than twice the length of the 

 carapace, and have the dactyli, even of the fifth pair, very little 

 falcated, whereby this species may be at once distinguished from 

 A. cranchii and A. lacertosus. A. tuberculatus, Miers, has the cara- 

 pace much less constricted behind the eyes, a prominent cardiac spine, 

 &c. I should note that in specimens of A. lorina in the Museum 

 collection the spines of the carapace are much less prominent than 

 in the figure of Adams and "White. 



2. Camposcia retusa, Lair. 



Two females of this common Oriental species were obtained on 

 the beach between tide-marks at Mozambique (No. 224), a locality 

 whence Dr. Hilgendorf has already recorded it. I have already 

 referred to its distribution on p. 189. 



3. Huenia pacifica, Miers. 



A male from the Seychelles, 4-12 fms. (No. 194), closely resembles 

 the type specimen of this species from the Eijis in the characteris- 

 tically long and slender rostrum and in all other characters. The 

 occurrence of H. pacifica at the Seychelles suggests the possibility 

 of this form being identical with H. grandidieri, A. M. -Edwards, 

 from Zanzibar, founded upon a female example only f. I have, 

 however, already noted the distinctions which exist between M.- 

 Edwards's figures of //. grandidieri and the female from the Fijis 

 in the Museum collection which 1 refer to H. pacifica. With the 

 limited material available for comparison, the two forms certainly 

 cannot be united ; but perhaps the examination of a sufficient series 

 would demonstrate the necessity of regarding both as mere varieties 

 of the long-known H. proteus, with which they may be linked through 

 the form designated by White H. heraldica, which has been already 

 cited in the first part of this lleport as synonymous with H. proteus. 



* Zool. ' Samarang,' Crust, p. 3, pi. ii. fig. 2 (184S). 



t Ann. Hoc. Entom. France, ser. i, v. p. 143, pi. iv. fig. 2 (1865). 



